1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for collecting and summarizing celebrity-related news, and more particularly to a system and method for automatically creating a digest of celebrity information received over an adjustable time range from publicly available electronic data sources by applying automated qualitative and quantitative analytical methods to select information for inclusion in the digest and to convert such information to summary form.
2. Background
Since well before today's thriving entertainment industry, celebrity news has been a part of the world media landscape. Tabloid newspapers, magazines, entertainment reporting television programs, and even mainstream news programs report on celebrity issues to a vast audience, with new television programs, print media, and other sources with a celebrity news focus becoming available each month. Moreover, the growth of electronic media available over the internet and the portability of data have increased demand for such information, which increased demand has led to growth of the corpus of available celebrity information. For those interested in following celebrity news, the crowding of the marketplace with so many sources of celebrity information can make it difficult to find the particular pieces of celebrity information a reader is interested in. Such celebrity news is typically compiled by hand and presented to readers in an ever-widening array of formats ranging from simple tickers along the bottom of a screen to comic book like tabloids. Unfortunately, to date, there are no systems available to effectively and automatically summarize such a barrage of information into a usable form for a typical reader.